Responsible tourism

Responsible tourism: Peru trekking vacation, Lares

For all of our treks we buy fresh local produce. In preference we choose local over imported goods, encouraging the use of local products in our cooking. On our treks we minimize waste by using products with minimum packaging, leaving no litter and keeping all water sources clean, leaving camp-sites cleaner than we find them. Rubbish is carried out.

We are involved in the ongoing training of our trek staff. All our porters are local to the areas we trek through on our Peru trekking vacation in Lares. They carry a maximum 20kg load, and are provided with tents and food. We pay and treat our staff fairly. We support the Tourism Concern Porters Policy.

Our trek guides inform trekkers of local customs and culture and provide an insight into how these remote mountain communities survive. We support Ninos childrens health care project in Cusco, and various other projects in Lima and Huaraz. We are happy to distribute your donations of much needed warm clothes and shoes to Peruvian children through this organization - please contact us for details of how you can help.

Our Cusco based partner is a Peruvian company that employs Peruvian personnel. The company pays a fair wage and invests a percentage of profits in community-based development and training. The Cusco office uses both sides of paper for printing and only prints when necessary, they also separate paper, plastic, glass, and inorganic waste and take it to the city’s recycling centre. They accept recyclable materials from tourists in their office and are listed as a Green Business Cusco by South American Explorers Club. They also offer bottled water for free in the office and encourage clients to refill their water bottles instead of buying plastic bottled water.

On this Peru trekking vacation bottled water is provided to clients at the beginning of treks in order to discourage them for buying plastic bottled water for the first morning of treks (we provide boiled water during the rest of the trek). The Leave No Trace guidelines are followed at campsites and along the trails and clean-ups along trek routes and local rivers are organized too. On trek reusable cloth bags are used for snacks instead of small plastic bags. Biodegradable soap and dishwashing liquid are used on trek.

Several thousand polylepsis (Queuna) trees have been donated and planted in areas where they are in danger of extinction in the Lares Valley and toilets have been constructed and maintained in the communities of Quishuarani and Cuncani to discourage environmental contamination by tourist groups.

There has also been assistance to Quishuarani and Cuncani in the areas of health, education, and environmental conservation, including construction and improvement of campsites in Quishuarani and Cuncani, donation of tools for harvesting crops and help with harvest, building of greenhouses to improve agricultural production and nutrition, provision of teachers in each community to assist more students, improvement of school facilities and donation of materials such as text sets, books in Quechua and Spanish, desks, chairs, blackboards, pens, paper, construction of a community centre in Cuncani for villagers to display weaving methods and display wares. This centre will also serve for cultural and educational exchanges/training. In addition there has been assistance to the communities in the provision of nutritional breakfast at school for community children attending school, reforestation to protect native flora and fauna in danger of extinction and to provide alternative resource for cooking firewood, visits by health care providers to evaluate children and provide medical supplies to school, donations of warm clothing, blankets, personal hygiene items (towels, toothbrushes, soap).

And since 2006 we have been able to support the Huchuy Yachaq community project in the marginalised neighbourhood of Hermanos Ayar, on the outskirts of Cusco, with the help of everybody who has travelled with us. We donate USD $3000 a year to this community project.

The project has been set up by volunteer social workers and teachers to provide much needed social and educational support to the children and families of this neighbourhood. Children are encouraged to attend study and games sessions held each afternoon and participate in vacation projects. Our contributions so far have paid for educational books and games, tables and chairs, improvements to the structure of the basic community owned building and the addition of functioning toilets, materials for the children to take to school, school books, vacation programmes.